Bitwise Asset Management, a San Francisco, CA-based cryptocurrency index fund manager, completed a $70m Series B funding round.
The round was led by Elad Gil and Electric Capital, joined by new backers Daniel Loeb’s Third Point LLC, Daniel Och’s Willoughby Capital, Louis Bacon’s Moore Strategic Ventures, Paul Eisenstein’s Vetamer Capital, Coinbase Ventures, ParaFi Capital, and Alison Davis and Matthew Le Merle’s Blockchain Coinvestors; new individuals investing personally include Henry Kravis, Stanley Druckenmiller, Daniel Sundheim (D1 CIO), David McCormick (Bridgewater CEO), Kevin Warsh (former U.S. Federal Reserve Governor), Nadeem Meghji (Blackstone Head of Real Estate Americas), Fidji Simo (Head of Facebook App), Helen Riley (Google X CFO), Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz (Charles Schwab Foundation President), Tracey Warson (former Head of Citi Private Bank), Charles Goldman (former AssetMark CEO), Mary Cranston (Visa Board Director), Carolyn Everson (former Facebook VP), Julie Zhuo (former Facebook VP), Asha Sharma (Instacart COO), Ashley Yuki (Instagram Product Director), Howard Akumiah (Spotify Product Director), Ranjana Clark (MUFG Head of Global Transaction Banking), Abby Adlerman (Boardspan CEO), Katia Verresen, Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann (former Head of Citigroup’s International Personal Bank), Ben Stein (Spruce House Managing Partner), Dave Fogel (IndexIQ Co-founder), C.J. Fitzgerald (Summit Partners Senior Advisor), Paul Sallaberry (U.C. Davis Foundation Board of Trustees), Tom Schmidt (Dragonfly Capital General Partner), Stani Kulechov (Aave Founder), and Robert Leshner (Compound Labs Founder), and existing backers Highland Capital, Khosla Ventures, Blockchain Capital, Castle Island Ventures, Alison Davis, Adam Nash, and Naval Ravikant.
The company, currently profitable, expects to use the funds to strengthen its balance sheet and accelerate the national buildout of its organization, team and product suite.
Led by CEO Hunter Horsley, Bitwise is a cryptoasset manager handling over $1.2 billion across an expanding suite of investment solutions. The firm manages a large crypto index fund (OTCQX: BITW), and has pioneered products spanning Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi and crypto-focused equity indexes. In February, the company launched a DeFi index fund, the Bitwise DeFi Crypto Index Fund. In May, the firm launched the Bitwise Crypto Industry Innovators ETF (NYSE: BITQ), a crypto industry ETF, which tracks the Bitwise Crypto Innovators 30 Index of pure-play crypto equities. These new funds join the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund, as well as the Bitwise Bitcoin Fund, the Bitwise Ethereum Fund, and other products.
The firm also focuses on partnering with financial advisors and investment professionals to provide quality education and research.
FinSMEs
15/06/2021